Noam Chomsky explains the value of holding your nose and voting for Hillary

No one can accuse famed linguist and activist Noam Chomsky of being a corporate sell out.

At the same time, he’s not above acknowledging the cold, hard realities of electoral politics.

In a piece posted at AlterNet, Chomsky outlines an eight-point rationale for progressives who live in swing states to accept voting for the “lesser evil,” which in Chomsky’s mind is Democrat Hillary Clinton.

It isn’t that Chomsky is supportive of Clinton — indeed, he’s particularly critical of her interventionist foreign policy streak. Rather, he thinks that the dangers posed by a Trump presidency are so great that accepting a “lesser evil” option is vital to the future of the entire planet.

On the issue of climate change alone, Chomsky posits that Trump presents a unique danger to life on Earth.

“One of these candidates, Trump, denies the existence of global warming, calls for increasing use of fossil fuels, dismantling of environmental regulations and refuses assistance to India and other developing nations as called for in the Paris agreement, the combination of which could, in four years, take us to a catastrophic tipping point,” he writes.

But the most compelling point Chomsky makes is that voting shouldn’t be seen as a moral act, but as a strategic necessity aimed at preventing the worst possible outcome.

“Voting should not be viewed as a form of personal self-expression or moral judgement directed in retaliation towards major party candidates who fail to reflect our values, or of a corrupt system designed to limit choices to those acceptable to corporate elites,” he writes.